Term limits were embraced across Africa as a check on presidents with dictatorial ambitions. Little wonder, then, that a proposal to change Nigeria's constitution to allow the president a third term has sparked raucous debate. Amid dire warnings and apocalyptic headlines, the proposal has split President Olusegun Obasanjo's own party and set various tribes and religious groups against one another in a country already fraught with tensions that often explode into deadly violence.Obasanjo has not said whether he wants to run again, but his allies are pushing for a third term. Vice President Abubakar Atiku, a former Obasanjo ally who wants to contest the 2007 election, has become a leading opponent of what some see as a plot to make Obasanjo president for life, ... http://www.foxnews.com

Torrential rain and hailstorms have lashed already drenched parts of northwestern Bulgaria, worsening large-scale flooding along the swollen Danube River.The northwestern district of Vratsa was worst hit by Thursday's rainfall. Several villages in the area were inundated, local authorities said. No injuries were reported.Many roads and bridges in the region were damaged, and large swaths of farmland were flooded. Most of the houses in the villages of Vladimirovo and Banitsa were left with flooded basements and ground floors.Meanwhile, volunteers and army troops continued to strengthen embankments along the surging Danube River with sandbags....http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/04/20/balkans.floods.ap/index.html?section=cnn_world

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has asked the main Shia coalition to confirm his candidacy in a bid to break the deadlock over a new government. Mr Jaafari's candidacy is rejected by Sunni Arabs, Kurds and others and some members of his own coalition. Until now he has refused repeated demands to stand down. Parliament was due to meet for its second session on Thursday, but it was postponed to allow the United Iraqi Alliance to consider Mr Jaafari's fate. BBC correspondent Jim Muir says the hope is that the UIA will pick a new nominee acceptable to all parties, so that the government formation can go ahead swiftly - or it could renominate Mr Jaafari. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4925686.stm

Americans are leaving the nation's big cities in search of cheaper homes and open spaces farther out. Nearly every large metropolitan area had more people move out than move in from 2000 to 2004, with a few exceptions in the South and Southwest, according to a report being released Thursday by the Census Bureau. Northeasterners are moving South and West. West Coast residents are moving inland. Midwesterners are chasing better job markets. And just about everywhere, people are escaping to the outer suburbs, also known as exurbs. "It's a case of middle class flight, a flight for housing affordability," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "But it's not just white middle class flight, it's Hispanics and blacks, too." The Census Bureau measured domestic migration people moving within the United States from 1990 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2004. The report provides the number of people moving into and out of each state and ...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-20-urbanflight_x.htm

A Mexican priest has confessed to strangling a woman with whom he had an 18-month-old child, before chopping up and dumping her body, authorities say. Cesar Torres, 42, admitted killing his lover, 22-year-old Veronica Andrade Salinas, on Easter Sunday, a state attorney general said. A row between the two erupted shortly after Torres had said Mass. Police arrested Torres after being tipped off by the victim's mother, and finding him covered in bruises. The mother said the pair had been in a relationship for years, since they first met when Ms Salinas was 13. They had a daughter 18 months ago. Ms Salinas apparently called on Torres after Mass at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Nezahualcoyotl, on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City, said the attorney general of Mexico state, Abel Villicana. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4926364.stm

Nepalese security forces have opened fire on protesters in the capital, Kathmandu, killing at least three people, hospital sources say. At least 100,000 people defied a shoot-on-sight curfew, marching on central Kathmandu to rally against the absolute rule of King Gyanendra. Doctors say at least 40 others were injured, some seriously. The king imposed direct rule in February 2005, saying the government had failed to defeat Nepal's Maoists. Thursday's deaths were the first in the capital during two weeks of national strikes and protests by an alliance of seven opposition parties. Ten people have been killed elsewhere since the strike began. The UN human rights body, the UNHCR, on Thursday accused the government of obstructing the deployment of its monitors in the Kathmandu Valley in "clear violation" of an agreement...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4924610.stm